Sunset to Sunrise (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #7.5)

A pimp stood beneath the streetlight outside a filthy, rundown bar. In one hand, he held a cigar, in the other, the arm of a young woman trembling in fear. She was already so scared. So tempting.

As I walked down the street toward them, I clung to the shadows. I didn’t want to be seen yet. Conscious thought dissipated. Hunger guided my steps. The scent of fear was tantalizing, seducing me with the promise of blood and death.

The girl was the one I wanted. She smelled fucking fabulous whereas the man at her side reeked of cheap cologne and even cheaper cigars. It wasn’t her I grabbed though.

Appearing from the darkness, one of many monsters walking these streets, I grabbed the pimp around the throat and jerked him close. Staring into his bloodshot eyes, I saw my reflection. Fangs bared, expression of crazed delight, I looked very much like the monster from tales of old.

There was no romanticism, no beauty to what I was or what I was about to do. My victim never justified it, not for a second. It was pure evil.

It didn’t matter if there were witnesses. Nobody would speak a word of what they saw. That was how it worked in these parts. Those who kept their mouths shut stayed alive longer than those who talked.

I bit into the pimp with such viciousness his blood spattered my face. His cigar fell to the ground, forgotten and drenched in gore. My attack was brutal, driven by a need for release that was only temporarily satisfied.

The girl ran, and I reached to stop her. Despite his attempt to sell her on the streets, the pimp flung himself between her and me. She pulled free and took off down the street, her screams echoing all around us.

He’d waited too late to show humanity. His bravado came too late to pretend he was something he was not. I wasn’t fooled for a moment by my victim’s protective action. He was a dirt bag, and he would die like one.

I bit him again, opening up an artery in a scarlet gush. The acrid aroma of his terror tickled me in unseen places. His fear was heady, a palpable entity that I drank down along with his blood. My entire body thrummed with the potency of his terror. There was nothing else quite like it. It lifted me up to a place I never wanted to come down from, a place where emotion ceased to exist. Where nothing existed but my victim and me.

Too soon it was over. I stood over his fallen body, watching the last spurts of blood paint the sidewalk a dark, murky red. Blood stained my hands. My face and clothing were spattered with it.

I turned to find one lone person watching me from a nearby bus shelter. An old man, with grocery bags in hand, stared at me with an expression so carefully neutral I had to be impressed. Especially since he stunk of panic.

There was most definitely a moment where I considered going for him next. I even took a step toward him. Then he spoke to me, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Thank you,” he stammered, pointing with a grocery bag-laden hand at the pimp on the ground. “That bastard has been selling girls around here as young as my granddaughter. Lord knows the law won’t deal with him properly. Somebody had to. Good on you.”

What the fuck? I backed away, unable to tear my eyes from this man who so boldly thanked me for an act of violence and evil. It didn’t make any sense how someone could look upon me in my element and find something good in my maniacal actions. It made sense that Alexa hunted in these parts. The place was so dark and so filled with foul people that a monster like me appeared to be good.

There was no stopping the violent surge of anger and hatred that came upon me. By the time I reached my Camaro, I had thrown a mailbox through the window of an abandoned building and punched out two guys fighting outside a massage parlor. I revved the engine a few times before peeling away. Turning the music up, I opened the window and let the evening breeze cool me.

My phone rang. It was Jez. I ignored it. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to her. She didn’t call back or leave a message so it couldn’t have been that important.

For a long time I just drove. Eventually I would have to retire to either my home or The Wicked Kiss. Until then, I would drive. I couldn’t count the many nights I had driven aimlessly around the city, waiting for the dawn’s first rays to peek over the horizon. It was all I could do to keep myself occupied these days. On nights like this, I wondered if it wouldn’t have been best for me to remain in the FPA lockup.

Chapter Seven

I stared at the list of addresses and adjusted the fedora perched on my head. Every building on Shya’s list was either old, elaborate or both. It seemed a tad presumptuous to me, but hey, it’s not like he asked my opinion.

“This is it?” I asked the demon at my side.

Brook was one of Shya’s demons. He wasn’t high in rank, but he was no less deadly than any other. Tall, dark haired with eyes as black as sin, Brook carried himself with a constant air of menace.